I am currently both, I want to retain both. I have been with HH for the past three years, and with Marriott for the past six months.

I currently have just over half a million HH points, and a little less than forty thousand Marriott points.

That's enough for a big holiday or two at a high-end Hilton property, and enough for an overnight or two at a cheapo Marriott.

So I have enough to keep me going. I know the conventional wisdom is to focus on a single brand, and I am happy enough to do that. I like different aspects of both chains, there is no over-riding factor that I am aware of from that perspective, save perhaps that HH recently did a devaluation.

To retain Diamond, it tells me I need 28 stays, or 60 nights, or earn 100,000 points.

To retain Platinum, it tells me I need 75 nights.


Since most of my stays are single overnights, does it make sense to switch my loyalty mostly to Marriott?

With overnights, I could knock out the bulk of the 28 stays with Hilton in two to three months. The rest of the year could be with Marriott, as 75 nights/stays is a much tougher proposition.

Or am I missing something?

To be honest, doesn't sound like you have much loyalty to Marriott - seems like you got comped platinum.

75 nights a year is all you need to quality for Platinum. You are are 0 nights for the year.

If you had made platinum on your own last year, even one night over 75 would have rolled over into this year.

Also, if you had the marriott credit card, you'd automatically start with 15 nights per year and an additional night credit for every $3K spend.

So, although you have to earn 75 nights per year, with rollover and the credit card, it makes it easy. Sure marriott has the highest bar in the industry to get to their (published) top tier - and there are always other chains, of which Hilton is just one - that have lower night requirements and thus are a better fit for some.

My rollover doesn't even start until 100 nights because marriott bumped me up to Platinum Premier. So I don't get rollover from the 75 nights.

Still, I'm sitting at 139 nights so far this year. Did I stay 139 nights? No. 21 nights because I own 3 weeks with Marriott Vacation club and I actually stay at my resorts. 15 nights from the credit card (and free nights too) and many more nights for multiple $3K spend. Rollover from last year was 53 nights (!), so my total bonus nights (nights I didn't say) is 76.

And I should be rolling over about 55 nights into next year, and have 15 nights credit from the CC and should earn 21 nights via MVCI. So without staying next year, I should rollover some of that into 2012!

So, it's doable. There are plenty of people who stay more in hotels than I do (heck, I'm even doing the SPG thing now because they have some night features like suites and cash and point awards, and a pretty sweet credit card as well).

It's all up to you and your perceived value. Me: I value travel packages. Garnered millions of frequent flier miles through these awards. Much more valuable to me than hotel stays alone.

Are you missing something? Probably spending nights at Marriott.

Billy

As with any time you are comparing loyalty programs, a bit of common sense has to apply:

- Which properties are more convenient (location and/or price) for your staying patterns?
- What awards to you aspire to?
- What elite benefits are more important to you?

Sure, you can get HH Diamond with just 28 stays (which sounds pretty easy with your travel patterns), but you can work the MR system with the MR Premier Visa and rollover to make Platinum with many fewer actual butt-in-bed nights than technically required.

What have _your_ experiences been with both programs that would make you stay with one over the other?

I got a status challenge from Marriott, I knocked out the required nights in a month or so. My Platinum would expire sometime next year if I did nothing about it, but as of now I only need another 19 nights, which I should have by mid-November


I don't consider I have any particular loyalty to either brand. Why would I? I'm the customer.

But I like the perks the top level gives me, I've used both Diamond Force and Platinum before, a real lifesaver when you need it.

I often stay out in the sticks, and Marriott and/or Hilton have by far the best coverage for those small towns.


But I also see the value in having a lot of points with one or the other just so you can spend a fortnight at the JW ski-lodge or whathaveyou.

Well, HH Diamond can be had for zero stays - you just have to use their credit card and live with $40,000 worth of CC spending accumulating somewhat less reward value than you'd get from the SPG Amex.

Marriott Platinum will typically need somewhere in the mid-50's nights-in-beds assuming you don't make the MR Visa your primary spend CC everywhere else. (Depends on your total Marriott spend on the Visa.)

So keeping them both isn't too hard if that's your goal. If 28 stays represents 3 months, you'd be MR Plat in six.

That said, the real benefit of Platinum status is at the full-service brands. Platinum at Fairfield Inn doesn't do you much good. Hampton Inns are generally better than FFI's. If that was my stay pattern, I might be tempted to make Priority Club my backup plan. They tend to show up in tiny towns where even FFI doesn't appear. (The main brand where you'd redeem PC is Intercontinental Hotels. There aren't thousands of those, but they seem to have *decent* global coverage.)

FYI I'm also both, but my work means over 150 nights a year so I don't have to choose. However, if I were you personally I'd stick with Hilton and accept the soft landing from Marriott Platinum to Gold, which gives mostly the same perks anyway for next year (Lounge, Breakfast, potential upgrade) and then reassess your status next year when you start to travel once more.

My reasoning is that Hilton's diamond welcome points plus airmiles, if you choose them, make your stay pattern much more valuable at Hilton (with the 75 stays for Mariott you'd earn at least 1 night via the welcome 500points, but probably 2 at Hilton's nicer hotels (Cat 7 and above) - plus plenty of airmiles).

You should check out the Hilton forum for the current diamond targeted promotion with one free night cert per ten stays, so three free nights for your stays this year too which is going to be better than the maximum 50k points you get from Marriott for 25 stays via their Q4 visa promo. I think the Diamond perks at Hilton, especially the diamond guarantee for using that huge pile of points you have beats the availability issue around having a choice of hotels in a city where you have status.

Next year if you miss Marriott then its only 75 nights to requalify The roll-over benefit mentioned above probably won't benefit you as I suspect that getting say 15 nights this year would be lost, as they won't be above your tier status level (75 nights) so would just disappear. You may also find that Marriott keeps you at Platinum for a further year, though I think that is unlikely as your status match and lack of stays wouldn't show them much in the way of "loyalty" to be rewarded with an unofficial extension!

FYI - Hilton Diamond is easy to renew, if one is willing to change hotels when staying in the same region for more than a single night. A "stay" only needs to be a single night; however, all consecutive nights in the same hotel (whether on the same reservation or different ones) result in a single "stay".

My strategy for maintaining both HH Diamond and Marriott Platinum is to try to do one-nighters in Hiltons and multi-nighters in Marriotts.

Thus far this year I've got 30 stays (37 nights) in Hilton and 79 nights (including 19 CC nights and a few rollover nights).

The rest of the year will be spent chansing promos and picking a few more nights in Hyatts and Starwoods when possible.

I finished up my 75 Marriott nights last month and my 25 stays at Starwood so now I am out chasing the free nights promo at PC and getting low tier status at Hyatt and Hilton. Not doing myself any favors towards my lifetime Marriott status but sometimes a change makes me remember that the grass isn't always greener.

I also have dual Diamond and Platinum status--each has upsides and downsides.

For me the biggest plus of maintaining MR Plat is the prospect of lifetime Platinum (am at 880 nights).

The main benefit of maintaining HH Diamond is the lucrative promotions--currently the targeted "10 nights for one free night", and strating later this week, the double/quadruple points promotion.

This is my fourth year platinum with Marriott, second year diamond with Hilton, and first year diamond with Starwood. I'll maintain all three statuses through 2012. It really only takes 128 nights to get all three - less with rollover, CC nights, and double night/stay promos that happen. I like having all three so I can stay where I want and can take advantage of the best promos, though I'm thinking of giving up Hilton. Really not that hard to obtain all three, though.

I do like the HH promos, I haven't got my head around the Marriott ones yet.


How many nights for Lifetime Marriott Platinum? 1000?

Motorskills, there's lots of good advice in this thread. I just want to add a couple thoughts...

First is that there's no guarantee that Marriott will continue its rollover policy down the road. I actually suspect that they won't because they'll find that their policy is allowing people like me to start experimenting with other brands without losing our status.

Second (and related) is that it's not really possible to make long-term decisions about strategy. Rules change, bonus games change, benefits change, redemption values change. So, it's a decision that has to be made on a yearly basis after evaluating the bonus games that are in place for the first half of the year, where your soft landings would put you, and what redemption options you want to save up fore.

There's really no reason to hold multiple high statuses across brands UNLESS it earns you some really cool bonuses (such as Hilton's incredible Q3FN cert bonus earlier this year) or because there are properties that you prefer in various destinations.

Part of the fun of being a road warrior is starting out each year by figuring out a strategy. But no one else can really say what's best for you. It's ultimately up to individual preferences. For example, I like to earn Marriott points because they can be used as "cash" toward cruises of my own choice. But some MR members would rather lose an ear than redeem MR points for such a low "dollar value".

Back when I was a road warrior(not anymore, tho), I travelled enough to make the top levels in HH, HY, MH. Required some planning, as listed above, to maximize 'stays' vs. 'nights'. While I could have focused on just one or two hotel programs, I liked these three, as not only was it workable via the locations to which I travelled, but as many know, each hotel program has it's pluses and minuses, and it's very nice to pick vacations based on which chain has the nicest property in a particular location.

For this strategy to work best, one needs to do this multiple years, as while you can make elite levels yearly, it will take a bit longer to rack up the points, splitting them amongst more than one program.

Burned through most of the hotel points long ago, but I still have ~400,000 MH points on the books. Probably use some of these up in the next several months, as points don't age well, in this age of point inflation/deflation/withering.

I have been both Marriott Platinum and Hilton Diamond for many years now. It basically takes 103 nights a year without the free 15 for the Marriott Credit Card.
I bounce between the promotions and over the last year earned 7 free nights for my 28 Stays/Nights(4 nights free stay promotion)at Hilton and 60000 Delta miles(promotion) and and now a few free nights at Marriott(megabonus). These are not counting the normal points.

I find if I just concentrate on the promotions it usually works out that I get both Diamond and Platinum.

Good Luck